Game AI Pro 3

14

Combining Scripted Behavior with Game Tree Search for Stronger, More Robust Game AI

Nicolas A. Barriga, Marius Stanescu, and Michael Buro

14.1    Introduction

14.2    Scripts

14.3    Adding Search

14.4    Final Considerations

14.5    Conclusion

References

14.1  Introduction

Fully scripted game AI systems are usually predictable and, due to statically defined behavior, susceptible to poor decision-making when facing unexpected opponent actions. In games with a small number of possible actions, like chess or checkers, a successful approach to overcome these issues is to use look-ahead search, that is, simulating the effects of action sequences and choosing those that maximize the agent’s utility. In this chapter, we present an approach that ...